By Danny Minton

You won’t find her name listed as a hero of World War II. Chances are, you will have to search hard to find out anything about her on the internet. You’ll discover people with the same name, but they are people noted in history or modern society as important. Her name was Helen Morrison.

The year was 1943, and Helen’s husband was secretly deployed somewhere overseas during the war. Her two boys had enlisted and were in training. Helen was now at home alone, as many others were during this time in history. Helen was known for her baking; however, the previous year, the country had begun rationing food, so flour, sugar, and butter were in short supply. The black market became a source for many to supplement what they received. 

Helen lived a few blocks from the train station, and she often saw the trains as they stopped, loaded with young soldiers like her two boys, on their way to a war in countries they had only read about in school. Helen decided that she wanted to do something for them. She had an idea, but it would take some time to accomplish.

Since Helen’s talent was baking, she decided to use her skills to support a small part of the war effort. The problem was that, with rationing, she would have to make special efforts to get the ingredients she needed. There were two problems she faced. The first was the lack of butter for baking. Each family was allowed only a small amount of butter per person per week. Since she lived alone, that meant she only received a small amount. The other problem was that hoarding was illegal. Achieving her goal would mean planning on her part to obtain the ingredients she needed. 

Each week, Helen would save a small amount of her butter, wrap it carefully, and store it in the back of her icebox. She would take time to write down what she did so that there would be no question later concerning people thinking she was getting items from the black market. In addition, she saved her food stamps for items like sugar to use later. It took several weeks to get enough ingredients for Helen’s project. She had saved up almost two pounds of butter and made 200 cookies.

Helen took the cookies to the train station and began passing them out to the young soldiers who reminded her of her boys. Some of them, she knew, would be going off to fight and not returning home. The young boys loved the cookies, some commenting that this was the first time they had tasted butter in months. She spent time talking with them as they gathered around this woman who had shown them a simple act of kindness.

Later, Helen received a letter from the local ration board requesting that she appear to face possible charges of hoarding during wartime. Helen was nervous and scared as she attended the hearing. Notebook in hand, she explained what she had done and why. The committee listened as they heard a story of sacrifice to help others. Helen expected a fine or possible prosecution, but the response was anything but reprimand. The chairman, who had lost a son at war, laughed and said, “Ma’am, if everyone hoarded the way you did, we would win this war tomorrow!”  

The committee contacted the Department of War Information and told them the story. The government contacted Helen and asked for her recipe. They interviewed her, took pictures of her kitchen, and published them in a government pamphlet. The story of this common housewife spread throughout the country. She received letters from other mothers telling how her act had changed the way they would look at things. She was embarrassed. She hadn’t done it for recognition, but because she wanted the boys to taste something sweet before being sent to war. Every few months, she would take a few cookies to the station, while the local board “looked the other way.” Other women started doing the same, sacrificing for others.

We read stories of war heroes, men and women who have sacrificed in battle and in ways that we could never imagine. Books are written about brave soldiers and the fantastic acts they performed during the wars our country has been involved in over the years. Movies are made to give us a glimpse of what those who fought went through and how they sacrificed. Today, we read stories of well-known people who become involved in charitable work and support certain causes. The media builds stories about celebrities and organizations that become involved.

However, in the real world, most people are touched not by what well-known people do, but by the simple acts of everyday kindness that go on by people whose names never make the news. They are acts of people who sacrifice their time to meet a need that they see in someone else’s life. Maybe it’s giving time to volunteer with one of the organizations that help those in your community. It could be your church group helping families during a crisis. 

When was the last time you sacrificed to help someone else? When was the last time you gave up something that you really wanted to do to give your time or money for what someone else needed? Jesus made the statement recorded in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” Sometimes laying down our lives is not necessarily about physically dying for them, but about being there when they need us, no matter what we must give up. 

There are many stories like Helen’s that have and will go unnoticed and unrecorded through time. However, kindness is not done for recognition. It’s done because people care for others. Just think how different the world would be if each of us spent more time being kind to others than complaining about what we don’t like. 

(Story of Helen Morrison adapted from Paul Harvey)

Danny Minton, a member of Southern Hills Church of Christ, is a hospital chaplain